Monday, 3 August 2015

The
advantage of exclusivity at Amazon. And yes this may sound a bit like a Promo
for Amazon. But that said, I do think Jeff Bezos deserves a pat on the back for
giving the great unpublished a worldwide platform that never quite existed
before Amazon opened its virtual doors.

Indeed there were small
on-line presses and a lot of small niche/romance publishers had their own web
sites, some with stores, but it was a hit 'n' miss market place for readers and
authors alike. OK, so... there were others who first dreamed up mass market
on-line e-book stores, some succeeded like Smashwords/Lulu et al, and others
dreamed up e-book readers, and yes, Kindle stole the lead on good marketing.
Plus Amazon's uploading facility was slick, unlike other cyber platforms, though
it's fair to say one or two of the others have improved somewhat, but not all.

So why
have I chosen to keep the majority of my books exclusive to Amazon? Ans:
Loyalty! It gave me a second crack at getting my books to readers, some old
republished editions along with new ones, and I've found Amazon staff a pleasure
to contact, and have in general received a polite and charming personal footnote
to e-mail correspondence, except in one case when a female member of staff was
clearly having a bad day at work or was simply devoid of social graces, hence
her response was curt and unhelpful. But, out of the blue, I received a
follow-up e-mail from a male who had taken up my query and had run with it, and
the response was great: mission accomplished!

So yes,
despite the fact other authors complain about Amazon's bully tactics, and at how
Amazon's exclusivity deals restrict other opportunities, I'm a fan of Amazon and
loyalty is two-way stretch in my little book of honour against the odds, and I'm
betting not one of you can claim greater sales on any of the other cyber
platforms, and I'll second wager, the majority of your income is acquired via
Amazon.